Femme fatale

The femme fatale became a very popular character in crime fiction in the United States during the mid-twentieth century (Jaber, 1). This character is a woman who is portrayed to be hyper-sexual and is manipulative towards men. The femme fatale appears in hard-boiled crime fiction and film noir. She also was featured on many pulp covers making seductive poses because of the rise of sex in books (Horsley). Throughout the mid-twentieth century, the femme fatale character changed. Throughout this essay, I will discuss what a femme fatale is, the history behind this popular character, and authors who used femme fatales in their work. First, what is a femme fatale? In Criminal Femmes Fatales in American Hardboiled Crime Fiction, Maysaa…

The Attic genre of tragedy shares archetypes and themes with the classic film genre of film noir. Both Greek tragedy and film noir feature femme fatales, women portrayed as devilish or in the role of a killer, the topic of the inevitability of fate is highly prevalent, and both genres incorporate mystery into their stories. “[Film noir is] a low-key black-and-white visual style, with a hard-boiled detective, a femme fatale, rainy streets, murder, and a downbeat ending” (Jukes). The genre of…

Made popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the film noir genre focused on the femme fatale, tantalizing mysteries, and hard-boiled detective stories. Often playing the damsel in distress who needs help from a big strong man, the female character secretly controls the entire show through deviance and she takes her French roots seriously. Men in these films either get seriously hurt or just outright die thanks to their involvement with these dangerous women. Unfortunately for her, it was not a common…

subject “femme enfant” and “femme fatale” characterizes the works of Dali. The femme fatale was the stereotypical woman who attracts a man sexually, and represents a huge threat to the man due to her infatuating characteristics. The femme fatale causes men to lose their minds, reason, intellectual ability, basically depriving the man from all his strength. It is evident that Dali furthermore felt threatened by the femme fatale in his painting The Spector of Sex Appeal (figure 1). The composition…

Romeo is in pain because of his first love in the play which does not exists in the whole play, but only in Romeo’s mind. Beside Romeo is in love with Rosaline but she does not return him her love. Meantime Romeo is really anguished and tries to find out the way for her to love him. On the other side Rosaline stand for an unseen character in the play, but she is very important for the whole story. And if it was not for Rosaline, Romeo would never meet Juliet. However he wants to sneak into the…

Although Abby was untrustworthy at the beginning of the film, she still had a sense of innocence to her. She does not intend for anyone to die or get hurt, she also hasn’t manipulated anyone, even when she kills Visser at the end she thinks it’s her husband threatening her. She is just an unhappy housewife that is looking for love and trying to separate from her husband. She is completely unaware of most of the events; unlike most femme fatales in classic noir films. Abby is a bumbling,…

moments in throughout the movie the lighting would become very bland, which indicated that there was no concerning actions going on towards Sam Spade. Other times, however, the movie switches to a very simply lit close-up which causes the audience to feel uncertain and worrisome about what might happen in the next scene. Throughout The Maltese Falcon there are many different camera angles.For example many times during this film the camera was angled at a very low position aiming up at a…

both depict femme fatale as a woman who is in fact dangerous and manipulative. To further understand the evolution of the character of femme fatale, it is imperative to analyze the character of Evelyn Mulwray from the last true film noir, Roman Polanskis’ Chinatown. Evelyn Mulwray is the ‘femme fatale’ movie and is played by actress Faye Dunaway. The movie was released in 1974, and therefore, present a different time. It was released almost thirty years after the birth of the film noir. The…

image of Vit, she is equated to a divine image, which is seen in the lines: “she rises like sunshine” and “Must emerge” . The use of verbs such as “rises” and “emerge” links Vit to the risen again Christ. This shows Annie’s idealisation of Vit since she is making a goddess-like image of her. However, this later contrasts with the line “she does the snake-hips with a hiss” , by using “snake-hips” as a verb here Vit becomes both Eve and the snake. These comparisons, both from Christ and…

Femme fatale is known to be a “fatal woman” who is characterized as a dangerous and seductive figure in different forms of text. In Fantomina and Double Indemnity, the female uses seduction to lure male counterpart into their world of terror. The character starts out with female characteristics and behaviors. David Crewe describes the female “alluring and enrapturing, film noir’s hapless protagonist is drawn to her like an insect to a spider’s web” (17). She goes inside the male character’s head…